agreed.

Im gonna to look at them in a vacuum I've decided, as a lot of the booking decisions have made no sense but the actual bell to bell has been fine.

Preview: Jim is giving higher ratings than me.

when i said that, i was thinking of the ladder match and the womens match
then i wrote some stuff down
its not good

I assume you guys are already regretting this decision

Could HHH/Roman be a contender for negative stars? So boring.

WRESTLEMANIA 32

IC Title Ladder Match: Ladder matches are usually competing exercises in the obvious positives (OMG spots) vs. the negatives (every competitor doing stuff that works directly counter to their purported quest to win the match). They're often awkward to rate, because they're usually really entertaining in spite of their flaws. The high-spots here were nice, the psychology was, well, less awful than usual. A bad result, and a bad finishing sequence, does bring it down, but I still really liked it.

At the time that I watched it, I thought I could maybe find four stars for it, but then I far preferred the Women's Title match later while also thinking that four stars was the absolute ceiling for that one. Given that point of comparison, I have to drive this one down a ways. But I still got a lot of enjoyment from it.

Rating: ***1/4

Chris Jericho vs. AJ Styles: Two good wrestlers performing solid, mistake-free work. So Dave Meltzer will probably give this four stars or so. Me, I thought it was very dull in spite of it being reasonably well-worked. One thing that brought down the experience for me was that I didn't find it dramatic because it was so obvious that AJ would win. Here's the thing: unpredictable results can be fun, but this one was an absolute abortion. I legitimately don't think I've been as agitated by a match result since Bryan jobbed to Sheamus in eight seconds or whatever it was. With most AIDS, I basically laugh even if I express dismay at it, but this one actually left me feeling sort of legit angry in the moment; that's an exceedingly rare reaction from me toward a booking decision. So it's not like I can give positive credit to the unexpected result.

I don't know, the ringwork was good enough to meet all the bad almost in the middle I suppose. But I feel like I'm being generous.

Rating: **1/4

New Day vs. League of Nations: This, too, was dull. More dull than Jericho-Styles. Some okay work, but nothing stood about it and I couldn't get into it at all. The result, while not as historically ridiculous as the Jericho-Styles result, was also bad and wrong.

Rating: *3/4

Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose: Lesnar matches are really their own sub-genre. Where other wrestlers doing the exact same spot over and over again could bore me, Brock never does. So I dunno, I was somewhat entertained by this, though not overly so. It doesn't help that they followed up two matches that drove the show completely into the ground. Half-decent, but most Lesnar matches are significantly better, and most hardcore/weapon-based matches are better too. When you put on a big underdog match like this, you need to make believe that the dog might pull the upset, and this never came all that close to doing so.

Rating: **1/2

Women's Title - Charlotte (c) vs. Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch: I was slow to warm up to this one, to some extent shell-shocked by the rest of the evening to this point I'm sure, but the early stages also had some overly-choreographed stuff, not to mention a bad botch where Sasha attempted to reclaim it after it was already burnt (the sunset flip spot). However, the match more than got there. Tremendous moonsault by Charlotte, lots of great chain mat wrestling…again not on board with the result, but if you're doing that result then it was done well.

Part of me thinks that I should leave this one short of four stars because I don't think it was up with Bayley-Asuka from Takeover: Dallas, but there's something to be said for delivering on the very biggest stage in a historically important match. I think that's enough for me to justify giving it that rating.

Rating: ****

Shane McMahon vs. The Undertaker: Dammit, I don't know. They definitely could have carved a lot of time off the front end of this match, since it was a one-spot match. But that one spot is truly historic, so I can't say that I actually wish the match hadn't happened. That consideration seems important. Sheer boredom and awfulness with one gigantic spot makes for another really difficult one to give any sort of conventional rating to. Let's just do this and not apologize for it:

Rating: **1/2

Andre Battle Royal: This was absolute trash, and the only question was whether to give it N/A or a really low rating. A solid result was the only non-terrible about this, and I guess it's enough to bump the whole thing above zero. That, and the fact that we made the truly odd discovery that there is a Tatanka in the Bank.

Rating: 1/2*

The Rock vs. Erick Rowan: LOL

Rating: N/A

WWE Title - HHH (c) vs. Roman Reigns: Have already written it too many times, but this doesn't fit neatly into a rating paradigm either due to the crowd atmosphere. That said, I remember that Sheamus-Roman match that got crapped on by the crowd that actually seemed decent, and this was definitely not that. Steph getting speared was the spot of the match, and it didn't make me mark or anything. The action was very dull, and the crowd was justified in their reaction. No chance I would ever want to sit through this one again.

Rating: 3/4*

Ladder Match ***1/4
Styles/Jericho **1/4
New Day/LON *
Ambrose/Lesnar *1/2
Women's Title ****
Shane/Taker ***1/2
ARMBAR *
Rock/Rowan -****
HHH/Reigns ***

gonna get this out before i try to forget it forever:

Ryback/Kalisto: *1/4
Total Divas/Bad and Blonde: 1/2*
Dudley Boyz/Usos: 1/2*
IC Ladder Match: **3/4
Styles/Jericho: **1/2
New Day/League: *1/2
Lesnar/Dean: **1/2
Charlotte/Sasha/Becky: ****1/4
Shane/Undertaker: ***1/2
ARMBAR: DUD
Rock/Rowan: DUD
Reigns/HHH: **1/4

That set of ratings looks misleadingly positive because of Shane's insane spot, and because I didn't really know WTF to give to Lesnar-Ambrose. I seriously considered going even lower with Jericho-AJ since I didn't enjoy it, but it seems like it objectively was at least up to the level I rated it.

Wrestlemania 32
4/3/2016


Ladder Match: * * * 1/4

This was a pretty typical multi-man ladder match spotfest. The choice for the winner was odd, but I really did like a few things they did. The Sin Cara fall off the ladder, land on the ropes, and springboard to the outside spot was new to me. Kevin Owens is dead spot was insane. They did another ladder break spot which wasn't much (it's overdone), but the Ryder and Ziggler homages to HBK were great (Ryder much more so). I don't think this was near the best multi-man ladder match, but I think it was much better than last years for instance and overall enjoyed it a lot. Solid opener.



Jericho vs Styles: * * 3/4

This is one of those matches where I think bell to bell ring work was pretty good but the result + lead up was abysmal. The match felt flat due to it being their 4th match in 2 months and the crowd certainly felt the same way. The result was awful and made no sense. However, there was some solid chain wrestling to start, a couple of nice back and forths, and the end sequence was a nice spot. It was certainly nowhere near where I was hoping it'd be, but it was solid in ring and I've decided I'm not going to let the booking factor in on this night.




League of Nations vs New Day: * 1/2

This was ultimately uneventful, didn't get me invested at all, and I just couldn't care. I can't say there was anything specifically bad but nothing very good either. The segment after was 0 stars. Loved the stunners tho.





Lesnar vs Ambrose: * * 1/2

This is 2.5 stars solely for how much I enjoy Brock suplexing people over and over. Realistically it should be a bit lower, but I enjoyed keeping up with the suplex count. The spot where brock gets the kendo stick and gives it to Dean was a nice little touch of how bad ass Lesnar is. It was ultimately uh, way too short.



Charlotte vs Lynch vs Banks: * * * *

That was awesome. It took a bit to get going, but damn once it did it was awesome. Just a really, really well done triple threat match. I thought this was better than Bayley/Asuka (and I'm glad I hovered a bit low on that one so I can differentiate them so much) in everything from ring work to ending (If you're gonna pick that winner, that's the exact way to do it. I don't love the premise of her winning at all, but once that was decided there's no better way to do it). Every single one of them came out looking like a million bucks, lots of good WRESTLING in there, some great spots (charlotte moonsault spot was fantastic), and even FLAIR took a bump. I loved, loved, loved the sequence where Charlotte kept going back and forth trying to pin people after a big move. They stole the show. Amazing work.




Taker vs Shane: 3/4 * for first 25 minutes, * * * * * spot

This was 25 minutes too long. They were both gassed. It was impossible to suspend disbelief of Shane competing vs Taker. Shane shouldn't be kicking out of a last ride, nor a chokeslam. Coast to Coast was sweet. However, the spot of Shane jumping off the cell was absolutely bat**** insane and will be replayed for, well, ever. I cringed, I tried to look away, I couldn't. It was insane. Shane is a crazy son of a bitch.



Andre Battle Royal: 1/2 *

It's too bad they turned this into a joke after the first year of taking it serious. Nothing of note here except a correct booking ending. Just really irrelevant stuff all around.



Rock vs Rowan: 0

If I ever gave negative stars, it'd go here.



Reigns vs HHH: * 1/4

Look. They tried. They've done everything they possibly could to get people to get into Roman. It didn't work. This match they continued trying - giving Roman a spear on Steph - and people kept not caring. This was flat, it was boring, there was no possible ending other than Roman winning, and Roman can't do much except jump in the air and punch people or jump in the air and shoulder people. It was bad and I don't want to watch it again. The fact that they at least TRIED to do things gives it a star tho. So congrats on 1.25 of them.

Three major takeaways from this mania:

1. I know in the other thread I've expressed disdain for the women's result due to having no faith in WWE keeping them focused on wrestling and not promoting a different show, but really the most important thing at this Mania was the emergence of the women's championship on the main stage. We had Sasha get the sole sing in entrance, wearing gear inspired by EDDIE, charlotte with a Flair robe, 16 minutes bell to bell that was constant, and the result was the best match on the card. It's the best women's match at wrestlemania now (sorry mickie and trish).


2. Shane spot was absolutely insane.

3. Announcing was so, so, so bad. Cole botched so many calls (he couldn't tell the difference between becky and sasha for half the match) and JBL + Byron have terrible chemistry.

I've noticed this a lot lately, but the problem with the JBL/Saxton dynamic is that JBL constantly bullies the **** out of Saxton. It wouldn't surprise me if this directive comes from Vince, but at times it's difficult to listen to.

It looks as though the following could go in the unpopular opinion thread as well. Shane vs Undertaker was the big return to wrestling for the popular, likable Shane McMahon after so many years away. It was hugely focused on in the build up to Wrestlemania. It was the Undertaker at Wrestlemania. Yet for most of the match the crowd seemed to not care. They were all just waiting around for the huge crazy spot for Shane.

It was poor storytelling and poor action. It was two middle aged men that shouldn't have had a match anywhere near that long.

And that is exactly what wrestling needs to move away from with all the injuries and with the concussions. The one huge death defying stunt to make up for everything else. Such a horrible example for young wrestling hopefuls everywhere. You can do everything else poorly, and then make up for it by doing one stunt that looks like it could seriously injure you. I wish that match never happened, and give it negative stars.

Copout

The rating is the rating for everything, but also acknowledging the spot as insane. I'd give it less without it.

edit: actually, I guess it isn't worded that way at all. It's all encompassing though, I just wrote it poorly.


I don't think one insane spot swings the needle on a 30 minute match when nobody cared about before nor after it. I hate giving it that little, cause I love shane, alas.

Ah, gotcha.

Ladder Match: ***1/4
Styles/Jericho: **3/4
New Day/LoN: *3/4
Ambrose/Lesnar: **1/2
Women's Title: ****1/4
Shane/Taker: Really hard to differentiate the spot from the rest, ** I guess.
Battle Royal: * solely for result
Rock/Rowan: lol
Reigns/HHH: 3/4*

I definitely agree with this. Perhaps I'd not have negative stars but everything else.

Have to rewatch (ugh) to make a concrete judgment on the overall show, but here were my in the moment ratings:

IC ladder match **3/4 - A bunch of spots we've all seen before with a ridiculous choice of winner. I guess we're back to burying the IC title.
Styles/Jericho **1/2 - A decent match marred by supremely bad booking.
New Day/LON *1/2 - Nothing match. Writers must have thought so too, since this was only there to set up the legends bit.
Lesnar/Ambrose **1/2 - Always fun to see Brock take guys apart, but this seemed pointless otherwise.
Women's title **** - Runaway match of the night. Process that for a second.
Shane/Taker * - As I said right after the match, this was well below average with one incredible spot. For the record, I gave the Taker/Mankind HiaC **.
ARMBAR NR - No rating for battle royals, but I liked that they gave the win to a new guy as opposed to using it as a liferime achievement award.
Rock/Rowan DUD - But -***** for the whole segment. For this they ran nearly an hour over on an already four-hour show.
HHH/Roman * - Down there with the absolute worst main events. Boring, paint-by-numbers match, and we didn't even get a surprise Ultimate Warrior return out of it.

My snap reaction is that the show gets 3/10. Might even go slightly lower.

IC Ladder match - *** .... great spots little story

Styles / Jericho - **1/2 ... my bro was visiting watching wrestling for the first time in a long time and laughed at the result - said Jericho looked weathered and since he's at the bottom of the card he's "obviously" going to put the new guy over. lol no.

New day / LON - *1/2 .... garbage match when you look at all of the talent.

Lesnar / Ambrose - **1/2 .... any Lesnar match is a ** minimum for me, even a squash match. This told no story though, you never even got an inkling that Dean could win by using some crazy objects to level the playing field.

Women's Triple Threat match - **** .... I hate the crutch of always using Ric for intereference but these girls delivered, good for them for stepping up. I think the blow off to this should be a triple threat match in a steel cage so no shenanigans next time. They have more talent and more in their repertoire than most of the guys on the roster.

Shane / Undertaker - *1/2 .... slow, boring, etc, etc. Respect to Shane for jumping off a cage even though he's so wealthy though

ARMBAR NR -*1/2 ... bumped up the scoring for giving the win to a NXT guy. Hopefully they put him on Raw and can actually cut a useful promo out of it

Rock / Rowan - just **** off with this **** already. Give those paychecks to someone else. Negative *'s for burying Bray

HHH / Roman - *1/2 ... The King of Kings should be called the King of ****ty Wrestlemania main events. Well I guess he should be proud cause he outdid himself and this was worse than anything he's done before. No story, no good pacing. Roman is incapable of doing anything other than jumping and punching/hitting/spearing. He has no charisma or anything. Contrast to a guy like Cena - he can't really wrestle to a great extent but he knows how to mug for the cameras at all the big moments in a match.

At the end of the day I can't get butthurt over booking decisions like Jericho winning or Naitch always interfering, whatever. Its like your favourite sports team always being inept and drafting busts in the first round.

But cutting off the mics during the main event is a big **** you to their audience. Why bother spending time watching this stuff if the WWE despises their customers like that?

I hope the RAW crowd absolutely destroys Vince tonight.

IC Ladder: ***1/4 - Some fun stuff, but nothing truly outstanding except for that Owens spot, which seemed unnecessarily dangerous. Obviously terrible result for a winner.

Styles/Jericho: ** - Didn't watch this live; had to watch it this morning. Adequate ring work, but horrendous booking.

New Day/LON: * - Really boring. Another terrible result, followed up with even more idiocy.

Lesnar/Ambrose: **1/4 - Why even have a chainsaw? Even if it's no DQ, you know no one is going to actually use it. It would be like somebody bringing a gun to a match. Anyway, match was fine I guess. Nowhere near the standard I've come to expect from a Brock match.

Women's Title: **** - MOTN easily. Still don't like Charlotte winning, but at least this result is salvageable (unlike Jericho/Styles).

Shane/Taker: -** - Yeah, negative stars. Whatever you thought of the spot (I can see both sides of the argument), this match was 30 ****ing minutes. That doesn't even count the entrances and exits. They wasted about an hour of Wrestlemania time for one spot for a non-wrestler who hasn't been in a match this decade. **** that.

Battle Royal: *3/4 - Outside of what they did to Sandow, I didn't hate this at all. Maybe it was just refreshing to see a result that made sense.

Rock/Rowan: DUD - **** off.

HHH/Roman: DUD - Toyed with the idea of negative stars here too. This could have been exciting for all the right or all the wrong reasons. Instead they just bored the **** out of us. It's like they didn't want HHH cheered, so they had him do a match with no pacing and no emotion. This might have worked if people had an actual face to get behind, but we're talking about Roman here. Such a flat ending to a way too long show.

Absolutely has a lot to do with it. Knowing that JBL is a huge ******* and notorious bully IRL doesn't help either. He probably does that **** to Saxton off camera. Saxton is still mundane and shouldn't be near main roster commentary. He works well with the MR and King on SD and is still boring.

IC Ladder: 3.25*. Ladder matches are easy and get graded well because they're like Michael Bay films and everyone knows it: things like "story" don't really matter, it's all about the explosions. I'm okay with that.

Styles/Jericho: 2.5*. Technically perfectly cromulent; otherwise nobody cares.

New Day/LON: 1.25*. Technically kinda sorta cromulent. Points deducted for being all a big setup for retirees to prove they're massively better than anyone today.

Lesnar/Ambrose: 2.75*. Too short, Ambrose needed to get a bit more offense in to make it useful (e.g. a few points deducted for having a semi-retiree prove he's massively better than anyone today), but I enjoyed it.

Women's title: 4*. Could have done without the early botch, could have done with a clean finish though I see why they didn't, rest was really exceptional.

Shane/Undertaker: 2*. The spot was 4.5*. The rest was -.5*. Like I said at the time I'm willing to pay $9.99 per month to watch Shane McMahon fling himself through a table.

Battle Royal: 0.25*. "Hey neat, Shaq." The rest was completely worthless, no interesting spots at all. I don't even remember Baron Corbin doing a single thing in the match before stealing a win, so I am not as impressed with the booking as everyone else. Frankly given the pre-match rumors I'm surprised Goldberg didn't stroll in and win in 17 seconds to prove how much better retired wrestlers are than anyone today.

Rock/Rowan: N/A. I want to know who thought this was a good idea; they deserve to be assigned as Shane McMahon's landing pillow for the next year. At least we finally learned that retirees are massively better than anyone today.

HHH/Reigns: 1.25*. Technically okay-ish, I guess? I think the absolute ceiling on this match was like 2* with the wrestlers, the crowd and the looming expectations, so ponder that this probably could have been worse. Negative points for that stupid HHH entrance holy crap. At least they didn't have Reigns walk down from the top deck of the stadium, that would have made Undertaker's entrance look like a warmup jog.

I honestly can't understand how you guys can be bothered rating most of the matches on the card. Ladder match was 3.25 or so. Women's match was 4. Nothing else is even worth rating.

I am not nearly as into the Shane spot as most of you. But I have my biases--I'm pretty sure I dislike Taker more than anyone on this board.

The Roman/HHH match was really disappointing. I realize that I like Roman more than most of this board (which isn't saying much--I don't really like him, I just don't hate him as much as most of you). But Roman was absolute garbage this match. He had no energy, seemed to be gassed pretty early. The best part for him was his shoulder selling, which was very realistic. HHH was also disappointing, but I guess he didn't have much to work with. They are both very capable of having a 3+ star match. Have no clue why they weren't even close.

I"ll rate the matches that I actually payed attention to:

Ladder match: ****1/4. idc that it's high. I thought it was fantastic. Owens and Sami's feud making it to WM was fap worthy.

Styles vs. Jericho: ***

Lesnar vs. Ambrose: **1/4. As big a mark as I am for Brock, I'm rating this lower than everyone else because I know they can do better than that. It was just way too short.

Women: ***1/2: I find it a bit overrated as the beginning was kind of a mess and a bit boring.

Shane vs. Taker: Dud. Boring as ****. Spot wasn't worth the risk. I don't want to see people die at WM. Horrible feud. Horrible match. Horrible payoff. Burn it with fire.

HHH vs. Roman: -*. The very first match I've ever thought of giving negative stars to. It deserves it. I'm sure some of my hatred for the match was because I was just ready for the show to be over.

This has to be the worst WM of all time. I know I said it wasn't up there with 11, 9, and others in the WM thread but it crept up there by the end of the night. Awful booking. The three main events where one gets negative stars and the best is **1/4. WOAT Wrestlemania.